AGR Dinner
Good tomatoes are coming. And sweet corn. It won't be long now...
Far and away the most common summer meal in my family was what Dad called "AGR Dinner." It was a simple one: grilled steak, corn on the cob, and sliced tomatoes with salt and pepper; maybe some Wishbone dressing. What it lacked in complexity was made up for with quality ingredients; it was timed with the arrival of those first good tomatoes from the garden, or farm stand.
You could say that the history of this meal began about 7,000 years ago in central Mexico when a grass, teosinte, began evolving into maize. It makes more sense to start in Durand, Illinois in 1942. In the summer of that year you could have found my dad holding the reins of two horses pulling him and a one-row cultivator through a field of corn. Maybe it's the Fourth of July, and the corn is knee high. George is 16, and in a few weeks he will leave the farm for his first year at the University of Illinois. You might say 16 seems a bit young for a university freshman. The
rather loose academic system of Durand in the 1940's determined that Dad
was ready. He wasn't, but Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor seven months
earlier, and that would set off a cascade of events that resulted in,
among other things, the interruption of his education, his meeting and
marrying Marilyn Howard, the birth of my sister, brother, and me, and
AGR Dinner.
The war ended. Dad was discharged in May of 1946, and he made his way back to Durand for the summer. In the meantime his father had replaced the horses with a tractor and could get by without Dad's help, so he got a job tearing down and rebuilding the town's livery stable. George will tell you that the Navy saved him, but I know that his mind and
work ethic would have simply found another way. He returned to the U of I for his sophomore year, switched his major to agronomy, and joined AGR.
"AGR" is short for Alpha Gamma Rho, my dad's fraternity. (I've spent some time trying to figure out how to get gamma inserted here as the Greek letter and it's not gonna happen.) AGR is an agricultural fraternity and it would typically be populated with farm boys turned college boys. In 1946 it had a lot of those, but it also had a lot of farm boys turned war veterans. "Some of those guys had seen a lot." They wanted college behind them and to get on with their lives, so they spent summers taking classes to hasten graduation. This included George. He spent the summers of '47 and '48 taking extra classes to fulfill his new major and move on.
At the end of both summers he and his buddies scraped together a special meal to celebrate the end of summer classes. They would soon head home for a few days before the fall term started. One guy was doing crop research and had a few tomato plants growing at the back of his plot. Another guy had a key to his family's meat locker, a common practice in those days. All of them had access to sweet corn. You might expect to find some open bottles of beer, and maybe even a girlfriend or two at that meal, but Dad does not remember them. "It would not have been out of the question." That is how AGR Dinner was born.
I doubt you need any additional instructions to reproduce my childhood version of AGR Dinner. If you want to kick it up a notch here are some ideas.
Kick it up another notch: slather raw ears of corn with A.B., wrap in foil, and toss on the grill.
Go full Martha Stewart: Submerge the unhusked corn in cold water for 15 minutes. Carefully peel back leaves on ears of corn, remove silk, slather with A.B., put the leaves back, wrap in foil, toss on the grill, rotate every 10 minutes for a total of about 35 minutes.
Now that whole corn thing above comes somewhat loosely from page 476 of The New Basics Cookbook, by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. I've tried that last method without the foil, tying leaves back onto the ears with a piece of twine, giving them another water dip, and grilling until the leaves are charred and burning off. Make sure at least one layer of leaves remains intact. You may need to experiment a bit.
The spiced butter is totally worth it. Grilling the corn is totally worth it, particularly if some of the kernels darken. It's going to be a special event that gets me to do that thing with the leaves again.
My favorite tomato salad is kind of a hybrid of two Mark Bittman recipes that can be found in his compendium of salads here. Cut tomatoes into bite-sized pieces. Combine with some cucumber and avocado pieces. (Avocados will need to be on the harder side of ripe to hold up.) Keep the tomatoes in the majority. Dress with tamari/soy sauce, some rice vinegar, a little mirin, and sesame oil. Gently toss. Add salt and pepper to taste. Some cilantro is a natural addition to this salad; basil is good too; Thai basil is great.
I can eat a mountain of that.
Far and away the most common summer meal in my family was what Dad called "AGR Dinner." It was a simple one: grilled steak, corn on the cob, and sliced tomatoes with salt and pepper; maybe some Wishbone dressing. What it lacked in complexity was made up for with quality ingredients; it was timed with the arrival of those first good tomatoes from the garden, or farm stand.
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| Squint a little and that's Dad. |
Dad started at the U of I as a forestry major, but the majority of his classes covered "remedial everything" in an effort to get him caught up. At the end of his first year he was in danger of failing. He was called up for the draft in the spring of 1943, but was rejected due to severe hearing loss in one ear; the result of a childhood infection. He returned to the farm and it's chores. Now the war was more important than school and he was determined to serve. He stayed home through that winter and in the spring of '44 was called up again. This time Dad was able to fake his way through the hearing test, and on his birthday, May 15th, was a Seaman. The Navy trained him to become a navigator's assistant and he served on an oiler, the U.S.S. Sepulga, stationed at the Pacific atoll Ulithi for the remainder of the war. It was the largest anchorage in history. The flotilla included 106 destroyers, 29 aircraft carriers, 15 battleships, and 23 cruisers.
"AGR" is short for Alpha Gamma Rho, my dad's fraternity. (I've spent some time trying to figure out how to get gamma inserted here as the Greek letter and it's not gonna happen.) AGR is an agricultural fraternity and it would typically be populated with farm boys turned college boys. In 1946 it had a lot of those, but it also had a lot of farm boys turned war veterans. "Some of those guys had seen a lot." They wanted college behind them and to get on with their lives, so they spent summers taking classes to hasten graduation. This included George. He spent the summers of '47 and '48 taking extra classes to fulfill his new major and move on.
At the end of both summers he and his buddies scraped together a special meal to celebrate the end of summer classes. They would soon head home for a few days before the fall term started. One guy was doing crop research and had a few tomato plants growing at the back of his plot. Another guy had a key to his family's meat locker, a common practice in those days. All of them had access to sweet corn. You might expect to find some open bottles of beer, and maybe even a girlfriend or two at that meal, but Dad does not remember them. "It would not have been out of the question." That is how AGR Dinner was born.
I doubt you need any additional instructions to reproduce my childhood version of AGR Dinner. If you want to kick it up a notch here are some ideas.
Steak
It's summer. Grill your preferred cut over charcoal. Don't skimp on the salt and pepper. Copy Tuscans and serve with lemon wedges.Corn
Kick it up a notch: Slather that hot ear of corn with Albuquerque Butter: combine 8 T. room temperature butter with 2 T. minced scallion or chive, 1/2 t. salt, 1/2 t. cumin, 1/2 t. dried oregano and some black pepper. Mix thoroughly.Kick it up another notch: slather raw ears of corn with A.B., wrap in foil, and toss on the grill.
Go full Martha Stewart: Submerge the unhusked corn in cold water for 15 minutes. Carefully peel back leaves on ears of corn, remove silk, slather with A.B., put the leaves back, wrap in foil, toss on the grill, rotate every 10 minutes for a total of about 35 minutes.
Now that whole corn thing above comes somewhat loosely from page 476 of The New Basics Cookbook, by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. I've tried that last method without the foil, tying leaves back onto the ears with a piece of twine, giving them another water dip, and grilling until the leaves are charred and burning off. Make sure at least one layer of leaves remains intact. You may need to experiment a bit.
The spiced butter is totally worth it. Grilling the corn is totally worth it, particularly if some of the kernels darken. It's going to be a special event that gets me to do that thing with the leaves again.
Tomatoes
If you have access to really good garden or farmer's market tomatoes, go for simple and just serve slices with some dressing, and maybe some basil. Caprese salad certainly looks good on a plate with the steak and corn.My favorite tomato salad is kind of a hybrid of two Mark Bittman recipes that can be found in his compendium of salads here. Cut tomatoes into bite-sized pieces. Combine with some cucumber and avocado pieces. (Avocados will need to be on the harder side of ripe to hold up.) Keep the tomatoes in the majority. Dress with tamari/soy sauce, some rice vinegar, a little mirin, and sesame oil. Gently toss. Add salt and pepper to taste. Some cilantro is a natural addition to this salad; basil is good too; Thai basil is great.
I can eat a mountain of that.
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